


Stare into the Abyss (and it might stare back)

by cethmistmyk



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Baseball, Bella isn't good with names, Chaos, Gen, Old!Bella, On Purpose, POV First Person, Vampire Bella Swan, a very minor good omens reference, there's one scene where someone is killed by a vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-22 10:36:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22714705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cethmistmyk/pseuds/cethmistmyk
Summary: What’s life without a little chaos?  If you can’t make your own chaos, store bought is fine.Bella Swan is not your average (eternal) teenager, and fitting in with children in High School is annoying, but when she notices a coven of vampires, well, it never hurt to play with your own people, er vampires.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 205





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this post https://vampireapologist.tumblr.com/post/182737505583 and well, I went out and wrote some stuff based on it, and it kinda grew out of my grasp. 
> 
> oops?
> 
> (I'm posting Tuesdays and Fridays, so unless I get bored and post it faster the last chapter should go up on Friday March 13)

Phoenix wasn’t that bad, you had to be careful about walking in the sun, but once you learned how to maximize shade, and bought a pair of skin-tight flesh colored gloves, you could go out in the sun. 

At least I could. I mean most people can go out in the sun, but I’m not most people. 

So here I was (forever) 19, destined to be pale forever, and my mom, it’s complicated, falls in love with a human! One of the fragile and frail humans who can’t seem to keep from breaking themselves! And the one she chose tried to break himself! I couldn’t take it, I had to move home to be with my dad, again, long story. 

Forks, Washington, grey and green at the same time. Do you know how many different kinds of rain there are? I do now. I will never understand why dad wants to live here! And in Forks of all places! At least if you lived in Seattle you could have your choice of humans. It’s too easy to stand out in a little town. But no, he wanted to live simply. He’d tried to be Vegetarian, and live off of animals. If we all did that deer would be extinct in 4 years! I try to keep to a population that can stand a little decimation! At least he saw reason once the human population reached more than double that of deer. 

But it is nice to see my dad. It’s probably been 50 years since we’ve last seen each other. Our reunion at the airport from the outside didn’t seem that exciting, to a human. We used to make a game out of it, see how fast we could talk and try to say things humans would freak out about without them hearing. Things like “How many people did you kill last night? You’re eyes are so red!” or “A+ blood is my favorite”. 

In all honesty, we only did that a few times. Usually we’re just talking faster than humans can see. 

“Hi, Isabella, honey. How are you?” he said with a smirk.

“It’s Bella, Dad,” I groaned, glaring at him. “How many times do I have to tell you, Isabella sounds like the 1600s.”

“Respect your roots,” came the expected answer, “people don’t remember the 1600s like they used to. Why I remember when corsets were coming into fashion. What’s wrong with a good old fashioned stay!” he griped, following the expected pattern. 

I smiled, “and what about now, there hasn’t been a corset for 100 years!” 

He frowned, trying to look sad and nostalgic for that past, “I know, women just aren’t as pretty as they used to be!”

I looked at him for a moment, then we both started laughing. “My body is living marble, of course I don’t need a corset!” 

“I don’t even know what humans find beautiful anymore!” he choked out, wheezing with laughter. 

By the time we had calmed ourselves, we were ensconced in his police cruiser, headed to Forks. You see, the chief of police had no reason to ever be suspect in a string of homicides 100 miles away. 

“So, Mom is dating a human,” I started, trying to gauge his reaction. 

“She is entitled to date whoever she wishes, and if it ends badly, we will be there to support her, no matter her feelings,” he said pragmatically. I saw regret flash across his face, just a split second, and I knew, he wasn’t happy. The woman he’d loved was chasing after a Human! 

“So, have you come up with a reason a young woman is coming to live with you?” I asked after a few minutes of silence. 

“Yes, you’re my teenage daughter from my first marriage come home to finish your education here.” he said. He said it so matter-of-factly that it took me a moment to realize. I was going to have to go to High School. 

“Wait, what?!” I cried, “You couldn’t have had me go to the community college? Maybe I don’t want to live away from home, and am willing to commute! I look too old for high school! It’s been 20 years since I even pretended to care about grades! I’ll never pass!” 

“I’ve been planting this seed for a year now, it’s too late to back out!” he retorted, almost angrily. 

It struck me, we were a coven now, I had no real drive to be in charge, so he was the leader, I had no choice. I was going to High School.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t so bad, High School. I had a perfect memory, and the American public education system hadn’t changed too much in the last 20 years. Yeah, some of the more technical aspects were beyond me, but at the same time, I could blame my mother, she didn’t believe in technology and refused to buy me a computer, or cell phone, or even let me use anything more advanced than a typewriter. Or at least that’s what I alluded to. In reality, I had been living in the desert of Arizona for 10 of those years, and by the time I had figured out how to blend back in to the mid-day sun, computers fit in your pocket. 

But it wasn’t all bad. I had fun pranking other students. There was a coven of baby vampires that I had fun tricking. After living for centuries you figured out how to hide even from your own kind. It wasn’t hard. Alternating animal and human blood to muddy the eye. Also good for making humans not get confused about golden or red eyes.  
Strong perfumes, rosewater and lavender. Lemon and cedar. Natural and utterly confusing. I’d learned that my scent was a blueberry frost, something unique and subtle. So I used rosewater and lemon to try to cancel out the scent. I also used scent blockers when I showered to die down the vampire undertone, they would assume the smell was coming from one of them. 

Next it was time to become human. Trip over nothing, laugh awkwardly and never make eye contact with boys. Try to please the popular crowd and eat lunch. That was easy, make a rare steak and eat it very slowly. Meat to try to get something out of it, and less to bring back up. 

It wasn’t easy, but after the disastrous dodgeball fight the first week I was there, where I was hit 5 times in as many minutes, they dismissed me as uninteresting and human. 

My test came in January, it was icy and I knew, the adorable clumsy girl would have an accident on the icy parking lot. My plan was in place. One of these kids would skid and I would have an accident and my place as a human would be cemented in everyone’s minds! 

Only it didn’t go that way. Oh no, of course not, why make anything easy for poor old Bella.

A human wouldn’t have noticed, but I heard the start of tires squealing across the frozen blacktop, I was in the perfect position to be hit. It might be hard to explain away the lack of blood or bruising, but people expect nothing less from miraculous saves. 

I glanced up at the coven, trying to put a look of panic on my face, while trying not to laugh at their horrified expressions. I knew it wasn’t the horror that was on the human’s faces. It was the horror of seeing blood and going feral. I couldn’t understand why their coven leader would make them go to a place where they would have to confront bloodlust, but then again, I was technically doing the same thing. 

I felt the van get closer and then suddenly it was wrapping around me, and not the way I expected. Edmund, or whatever his name was, Cullen was standing there, arms outstretched, keeping the van from crushing me. 

“What are you?” I asked, trying to play the part of innocent human girl. 

“Are you okay?” he spoke, looking confused that I wasn’t panicking more. 

“Yeah.” I stared at him in wonder, “why aren’t I more dead?” I should get an award for my acting skills. 

“You have a concussion,” he said. 

“Why, because I’m hallucinating someone who was on the other side of the parking lot is here and stopped the van with his body?” I said in my best vacant voice. 

He looked at me in horror, “I was right next to you the entire time.” I almost giggled, it was so funny making these little baby vampires squirm. 

“Sure, and why aren’t you bleeding from the van?” I asked, looking him up and down. 

His eyes looked panicked, like he was trying to decide between playing human and helping the ‘human’. 

“I’ll tell you what,” I said, “why don’t we say it’s a miracle and no one has to go to the hospital and deal with X-Rays and blood samples.” 

The relief washing across his face would be almost pathetic if it weren’t so funny. “I think you seem fine, and there’s no reason to bog down the hospital.” He said, looking me over again. 

“Sweet,” I said before jumping up from behind the van. “It’s a miracle!” I cried, “I’m unhurt!” 

The chaos around me dulled slightly, but the boy in the van was bleeding slightly, and he would obviously have to go to the hospital. I sighed, this might be tougher than I thought. 

It took a lot of convincing, and a promise to go to the doctor if I even thought I had a bruise, but I didn’t have to go to the hospital. 

That would have been awkward. Once humans had figured out things like how to listen to heartbeats, it got really hard to explain why they couldn’t hear mine. I do enjoy the pace of modern life, so many more people to not care about, but sometimes I miss the good old days where if a person disappeared there wasn’t anything anyone could do more than a day later. 

After my miraculous escape from death - teenagers have the best imagination - I started getting popular. 

“Why are you so pale, aren’t you from Arizona?” was a common question that first week. 

Again, thank goodness for teenagers, because a deadpan “I’m a vampire,” meant they wouldn’t ask again. 

“If you’re going to lie at least do something creative, like I was kidnapped as a child and now I don’t like to go outside,” one girl said, tossing her hair in my face. 

“Sorry if you don’t believe me, I was just trying to be interesting.” I would retort. 

“I guess you’re sitting out the blood typing class because you’re a vampire,” one of the boys said when I sat out the blood typing class. 

“Yup,” I said with a grin, “hit it on the nose.”

“You’re just a girl, fainting at the sight of blood,” he said, not understanding that most girls saw more blood before they were 20 than most boys did in their lifetime. 

The coven was worried, here I was spreading the rumor that I was a vampire. Well, if I was a vampire then I wouldn’t want to admit it, lest the head honchos decided to kill me for telling people what I was. Take that, logic.


	3. Chapter 3

But of course, all good things must come to an end.

It was a Tuesday, I had tripped twice when running around the baseball diamond and made my team lose the game. It was a good day. 

But it wasn’t to last. Scar boy approached me after school was over, I think his name was James? Jimmy? John? Who really cares?

“Isabella, we need to talk to you,” he said, trying to figure out why he wasn’t crazy with bloodlust standing so close to me. 

“Sure thing, but you should know, I don’t like being called Isabella. It reminds me of the 1600s, and those are so out of fashion.” I said, not even looking at him. 

He sighed, “drop the act Bella, I don’t know how you figured it out, but none of us are that old.” 

I looked up at him, “Whatever do you mean, scar boy?” I smirked, then blanked my face to look innocent and human. 

“I don’t even want to ask, but ‘Scar boy’?” he said, his entire body a sigh. 

“Well yeah, isn’t it obvious?” I asked, gesturing to his body. 

He tensed. “Most people don’t notice them,” he said slowly. 

“Yes, well, I’m not most people,” I said, then grimace, “I sound like a teenager in a young adult book talking to her older love interest to try to get their attention and sound older,” I complained. “This is terrible, quick, say something a Young Adult Novel Love Interest would never say!” I demanded of scar boy.

“Um, what?” was his eloquent reply. 

“Perfect, a Young Adult Novel Love Interest would never not know what to say,” I said with a perfectly straight face, “I think we’re safe now!” 

“Okay... what?” he said again. “Wait, love interest?!” his brain was finally caught up with my words. 

“Well, obviously that’s not the case here, you aren’t my love interest, and probably never would be, I’m not a huge fan of what you’ve got going on there.” I waved my hand over his body. 

“Wait, what?” He said again, like a silly boy who couldn’t keep up with the conversation. Surprising, really considering how much faster our brains move. 

“I don’t find you attractive,” I said, talking faster now, “you are a boy, you’re too lanky, and quite frankly, I’m not a huge fan of your hair color.” By this point I was talking fast enough that the humans around us would no longer be able to follow what I was saying. They could tell I was talking, but that would be it. 

“And besides,” I said, “you’re not my blood type.” I winked at him and walked away, leaving a very confused vampire behind. 

I thought the conversation a success, he didn’t get a chance to talk to me about whatever it was, telling me they couldn’t tell me they were vampires? Telling me they knew I was? Telling me to stop telling people I was a vampire because the Volturi would come and take me away for telling humans about the presence of the undead? Probably not that last one, this coven didn’t seem like the type to listen to the Volturi beyond general guidelines. Either way, the conversation was a success. 

Of course as soon as I thought that the hyper one found me. 

“Hi Bella,” she chirped. Honest to goodness, a chirp, like a bird. I was impressed. 

“Hi little birdy,” I said back. 

“So Bella, my Jasper claims his head hurts because you talked to him.” she tried to frown. It didn’t work. “I don’t like that. Would you apologize?”

“It’s not my fault he couldn’t keep up. I didn’t want to sound like a Young Adult Novel Protagonist, it’s pretty easy to fall into that pattern without realizing it, and then you’ve got to deal with all manner of tropes. It’s better to cut it off before it can even begin.” 

“Oh, is that all,” she seemed disappointed. “He claimed you were talking really fast,” she paused, almost like she was trying to figure out if she should say the obvious conclusion. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I interjected. “I tend to talk fast to try and keep my brain and mouth on the same page. I just said he wasn’t my type. That’s all.” I explained. 

“Oh, okay,” she said. “So he wanted to tell you we need to talk to you.”

“Sure!” I said. “I don’t sleep, so any time works for me!” I smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It was a ‘call-my-bluff’ smile. She didn’t notice. 

“Okay?” she said, like she was trying to figure out if I was lying or not. “Well, we have dinner at 7pm, so any time after that would be a good time to come over.” 

“Oh, no, I can’t visit anyone’s house without permission from my dad. He’s the chief of police and instilled in me a deep need to follow good stranger laws.” I said with a straight face. “You’d have to ask him if we can visit outside of normal school hours before I could ever think of seeing you!” I continued, my straight face cracked a little, but to anyone who didn’t know me it would look like regret rather than laughter. 

She looked at me with what appeared to be pity. “Are you okay?” she said quietly, looking around like my dad had me under surveillance. 

“Oh yes,” I said earnestly, “I love my dad and would never want to make him upset with me!” 

She looked less convinced than she had been a moment ago. “And he doesn’t hurt you?”

“Hurt me?” I said, like the concept was something I was just realizing was possible. I really need an award for my acting. Pity that would be too much attention. “He would never hurt me, he loves me and wants what’s best for me.”

“Oh, okay” she said, looking relieved.

“Wait,” I interrupted, “is someone hurting you?” I said like the idea was just dawning on me.

“No!” she said, “no one can hurt me,” 

“Is it Scar Boy?” I asked, looking around like he might be hiding around the corner, “Is that how he got those scars?! Now I’m really glad he’s not my Young Adult Love Interest! Not if he’s hurting people!” 

“What! No! Jasper wouldn’t hurt a fly!” She cried, “also, what, scar boy? Young Adult Love Interest?” 

“Yeah, that’s what we were talking about!” I said, pleased. “I don’t want him to be my Young Adult Love Interest, he’s totally not my type.” I guesterd in a keep up motion, “Keep up.”

“Sure,” she said like I was crazy. 

“I’m glad you understand, little bird.” I said, pleased. “I’ll let my dad know you want to talk to him!” I waved as I started walking away. “Laters!”

She waved back, almost on autopilot. “Bye.”

Second conversation, complete success!


	4. Chapter 4

It was then that the rumors started. 

“Maybe she is a vampire, she has those Cullens wrapped around her little finger.”

“She’s so pale, maybe she is a vampire, why else would a girl from Phoenix, AZ be so pale?” 

“If she’s a vampire, why does she faint at the sight of blood? Huh?” “Maybe it’s to throw us off the scent! You ever think of that?!”

I nearly had to go home early to stop myself from laughing. It was so funny these people! 

There were two people not amused. Well, two groups of people. The coven and my dad. 

“Bella, if rumors of a vampire reach the Volturi, they will come and stop you,” he said one day as we were lazing on the couch. 

“I know dad, but I haven’t let on to any true vampire secrets, like going out in sunlight, or venom or anything like that,” I answered, staring at the ceiling, I was nearly finished counting the cracks in the paint. “Vampires are a part of popular culture, and if anything, I’m telling lies about us.”

“Just be careful,” was all he said. 

“Aren’t I always?”   
\--  
The coven was less worried and more confused and concerned. They would say things at top vampire speed to try and catch me out. They would stand on the edge of shadows and stare at me as I walked through the sunlight. One of the girls would try to get me to talk about history and how people don’t remember things correctly. 

Of course, I never responded. I’ve been playing this game for longer than they’ve been undead, combined. 

It was fun, find a coven of vampires then pretend to be human until they snapped. There was one that I managed to get to fall in love with me and she was tortured with the thought of hurting her ‘human’ lover. Such fun! Of course, I had to be careful not to raise too many suspicions, because even though I ran hotter than a normal vampire, I was still colder than the average human, and so a vampire in close contact for an extended period of time would notice. 

But then she died, well, she went insane with the conflict of trying to tame her inner demon and couldn’t handle the thought of hurting her love, so she had to be put down. It was the only way! She would have exposed us all! 

I loved creating chaos, you could say I was built for it. In a way, I suppose I was. But that’s a story for another time. This story is about driving this coven insane. 

So a few months passed, I kept dodging their efforts to ‘talk’ both to me, and to dad. It was pretty easy, I just told dad not to engage with them, and I ignored them whenever they spoke to me in the halls at school. 

Then a group of nomads rolled into town. Normally I wouldn’t care, nomads tend not to try to interact with other people, humans or vampires, except to feed. This small coven would prove to be the exception. And America’s favorite past-time would prove to be the breaking point.   
\--  
Dad and I had gone to this clearing we found to toss a ball back and forth. Even though there wasn’t any need to train, and unchanging bodies don’t fail if you don’t use them. And even if we wanted to train, baseball wouldn’t help anyone. But it was fun, and the week was so sunny even body paint would be suspicious. So there wasn’t any way to go out around humans, and we were bored, and baseball is fun. 

The way we played it was more of a mental challenge than physical. We were one person teams. I would pitch the ball, and when dad hit it, I would race to catch it while he would run around the diamond we had set up. The mental part was trying to predict which way the ball would go before it was hit. That was the only way to reach it in time. It was a ton of fun, a great way to spend the sunniest day in months. 

Then the nomads broke the tree line. Dad and I both tensed. Nomads could either be spoiling for a fight, or just want to see someone new. It depended entirely on how recently they had fed. 

I could just see their bodies coiled, ready to pounce at a moment's notice. Of course, they would want to fight for the town, to see if they could stay for longer than a meal. 

“Hello, beautiful day,” I said, trying desperately to defuse anything before it started. 

“Quite,” said the man, who appeared to be the leader. “You appear to be enjoying yourselves.”

“We do all we can to drive away boredom,” Dad said, sounding very unconcerned. 

“Would you have room for a few more players?” the woman asked. I wasn’t sure which was more red, her hair or her eyes. 

“We might,” I said, “but it appears our numbers would be uneven,” I continued, gesturing to the remaining man. 

“We would rotate out,” the apparent leader said smoothly, “to keep it fair.” 

“That would be fair,” I said noncommittally. 

“Then it’s settled,” the woman said, “shall we play for anything?”

“I think not,” dad said, “this is just a friendly game to pass a few hours.” 

We all smiled at each other and started playing baseball. Honestly, the other vampires might have been better at strategy, but we’d been playing games together long before any of these vampires were twinkles in their parents eyes, dead or undead. 

It was a little more fun with another person on your team, I could throw more fun pitches that I might not have dared because the final bat was less predictable, because there were two of us to chase. 

In the end the other vampires conceded defeat. 

“You obviously have been playing together for a long time!” the woman said, shaking my hand. 

“Yes, it’s a fun way to pass the time,” dad said, shaking the leaders hand. 

“Maybe the next time our paths cross we can play together again,” the other man said. 

“I’m sure that would be possible,” I said. 

I waited until the last possible moment, then called out after them, “there’s another coven in the area, I would suggest waiting to hunt until you leave the territory.” 

They didn’t seem to react, although I knew they had heard. I sighed in relief. 

“That could have gone much more poorly,” dad said, starting back home. 

“I agree,” I said, falling into step with him. “I’m worried this will get back to the Cullens, somehow.” 

“I’m sure you can dodge any questions,” dad reassured me, “besides, you’re unique, none of your children have even half your talents.” 

I smiled, “you’re right.” 

“Now,” dad said, “what shall we do until the clouds return?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a vampire feeding, it's not too graphic, but still, someone dies.

It had been several months since I’d arrived. Because of my age, and unique abilities, I can go long stretches between feeding, apparently as a vampire ages their bodies learn to more efficiently harness the power in blood. It helps that an older vampire has more control in general. There’s a fierce debate about if it’s the control that gets better, or the blood usage. Personally I subscribe to the usage, I certainly haven’t learned control in other areas of my life. 

So today is feeding day. I’m feeling like something special. Maybe Indian, or Mexican? American is so easy to find, and it gets boring after a while. Finding a good place to get ethnic is harder than one might think. I imagined Seattle would have something, so I headed there. 

The first leg of my trip is by car. I generally drive for about 60 miles, to get rid of any tail, or anyone who might be following me. The last 100 miles is on foot. Anyone who was following the car not a vampire would not realize that I was going on foot, and hopefully none of the vampires following me would care, because I’d left Forks by car. 

Either way, it was early afternoon when I arrived in Seattle. Over the many years I’d been a vampire, I’ve had periods of self-hatred. Humans deserve to live. Humans who stopped another human from living were murderers. Murderers were evil. I stopped humans from living. Therefore I was evil. That’s how I spent the first century after I realized what I was. I tried everything, not drinking; terrible idea, I drained a small village after I lost control. I tried drinking from a cup; better as far as not killing humans, except most humans won’t bleed into a cup, and at that point an injury was a death sentence. I tried not killing them; not a bad idea as far as principal, practice was not so clear, I made several new vampires that way before I realized that new vampires had less control than I, and we would kill all the humans in the world before too long. I even tried drinking from animals; this worked for a while, but after enough time I became weaker and weaker and my children, who kept drinking human blood, were not weakening, so I decided to stop drinking altogether and bury myself in a pit. This was also a bad idea, I weakened to the point I could barely move. 

While I was in the pit I had a long time to think. I had been put on this earth for better or worse. Maybe at one time I had been human, but that had been so long ago, I’d forgotten all but my name, Elisheba. I wasn’t human anymore. Would I condemn a human for eating a goat? Why would I, the goat may feel pain, and would no longer be able to eat grass and enjoy life, but why would that stop a human from taking its sustenance? 

Many years later when a human stumbled into the pit, I drank from them thankfully. I accepted that I was not human, that I was a vampire and could help keep the human population in check. For many years after I came up out of the cave, I tried to take humans older than child bearing age. They were not necessary to prolong human kind. 

I admit, I’ve since grown out of that mindset. I’ve become selfish in my old age, if I want that human because they smell good, then I will have that human. Naturally, the growing human population doesn’t help. 

As I walked around Seattle, looking for the perfect human, I thought about the coven in Forks. 

They were all so young, if I was correct, only two of them have even seen 100 years, and the oldest hasn’t even seen 500 years. I didn’t feel like I even understood the world until my 500th year. And it took me 1000 years to have my existential crisis. Maybe I should reveal myself to them, just to impart important information. 

On the other hand, messing with them was such fun, and for all they are babies in the world of the immortal, they were once human, and have the ability to reason with their human minds. I would never deprive myself of fun. 

A scent had caught my nose. It was delicious, the perfect blend of spicy and sweet, coming from a businessman in front of me. He appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent. Perfect, a little middle eastern food was just what the doctor ordered. I tailed him for a while. After about 5 minutes of walking, he got on a bus. I got on behind him and found a seat next to him. Time to draw out my extrovert. 

“Hi,” I said, holding out his wallet. “I think you dropped this when you got out your card.” In reality I had pickpocketed him, but he would never know. 

“Oh my, thank you so much!” he said, taking the wallet back.

“So what do you do?” I asked. Nodding to his briefcase. “It looks like you’re carrying top secret files in there!”

He laughed, “I’m not that interesting, I work as a broker for a tech manufacturing company.” 

“But that does sound interesting,” I said, smiling. “Are you like the CEO or something?”

“Ah, no,” he said, “I’m just a manager of one account. One of my co-workers manages 5 or 6 accounts.” 

“But still,” I insisted, “that must be so interesting. You know more about this corner of the industry than other people!” I smiled. I wasn’t sure why I had decided to flatter this man into following me, but alas, I loved the way he smelled. 

“Oh, I’m sure people know more than they realize,” he hedged. I had to get him to trust me. 

“Well,” I started, “I don’t know anything about the tech industry, I was very sheltered growing up.” That was an understatement. When I was growing up, bronze was a new and exciting metal. 

“Well, most people think start-ups are hotbeds of innovation, when in reality, they almost never innovate the way big businesses can,” he said. 

“Fascinating, thank you - umm. I’m sorry, I have terrible manners,” I said, hanging my head a little, “what’s your name? I’m Bella.”

“Oh, of course, nice to meet you Bella, I’m Ahmed.” 

“Like I was saying, Ahmed, I didn’t know that about the tech industry. I work in a museum, and while I could go on for hours about the formation of alphabets and how early humans created art, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to listen to that.”

“Oh no, I would love to listen,” he said, “it’s always important to know about what comes before you.” 

I almost had him. Just a few more minutes, and I could casually mention being nervous to walk home alone. I smiled, “I know, I’m so passionate about making sure children know their history so they can change the world.” 

I looked outside, perfect. It wasn’t a neighborhood falling into disrepair, but was just rough enough around the edges to work. “Ahmed, I’m usually fine, but there’s been a bunch of muggings recently, and I was wondering if you would be willing to walk me to my door? It’s only 5 minutes from the bus stop, and I could give you bus fare as compensation. I usually wouldn’t ask, but the muggings made me realize how unsafe it is alone.” 

I could see him thinking about it, he looked at his watch, then outside to the neighborhood. “5 minutes you say?” I had him. 

“Yeah, you’d be back in time for the next bus!” I nodded, trying to look frightened and hopeful, an interesting combination. 

“Alright,” he said, “I’ll walk you to your door.” 

I smiled like the gods were shinning down on me, “thank you, thank you!”

We got off the bus, and I started walking towards the alleyways. “This is the fastest way, I’m on the next street over, and if I go to a block, it’s another 2 minutes.” 

He followed me into the alley like a good little sheep. I turned around and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Do you believe in God, Ahmed?” 

He looked confused, but gamely answered, “Yes, do you?”

“After a sort,” I hedged, “do you believe in the afterlife?”

“Yeah, otherwise I would never see my parents again,” he said. 

I smiled wider still, “you’re in luck, Ahmed, you get to see your parents again now.” I lunged, breaking his neck, and still looking like I was the one catching him as he fell, not the one attacking him. I sunk my fangs into his neck and smiled, the blood was just as delicious as it smelled. Honestly, people who followed a religious diet tasted better, you really had to hand it to those prophets. 

I knelt down with him as the last few drops of blood entered my body. I hadn’t noticed any windows or cameras, but that didn’t mean I should be sloppy. I looked inside his briefcase and found his phone. It was easy work to unlock it and find his boss. I read a few of their messages then sent, ‘I won’t be in tomorrow, I think I’ve got a stomach bug.’ That would buy several days before anyone would go looking from work. There wasn’t any evidence of a family on his phone so I broke the phone and tossed it on his body. I took his briefcase and put it in the dumpster under another bag, then I dragged him behind a dumpster and walked out the otherside of the alley, like the altercation had never happened. 

Being a vampire might cause an existential crisis, but my acting skills were better than any actor I’ve ever met. 

As I left the city limits of Seattle, I said my little prayer to Ahmed, “Your atoms were once part of the great kings of our past, may they become part of the great kings to come.” The prayer was my concession to the human I once was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for flavor, the pit Bella was in for all those years was a pit in Anamur Turkey around 1000 BCE.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short set up chapter for switching from playing with the coven to befriending the coven.
> 
> Also the tinniest good omens reference (cookie if you spot it!)

When I got home it was back to the same. Growth may take 500 years, but boredom sets in after 3 months.

“I had a revelation in Seattle,” I said to dad one night. 

“Oh,” he said, only just looking up from the baseball game he was watching. 

“Yeah, I told you about my existential crisis that lasted 1000 years, right?”

“Yeah, I can’t believe you ever thought to be vegetarian.”

“It’s different when the population of the world is under a 100 million. Enough vampires would have killed off the human race.” 

“Sure,” he said, “wouldn’t the world be better off if that were the case?” 

“Yeah,” I said, “but what would we eat then?” I waved my arms, “we’re getting off track, if a crisis can last 1000 years, how would someone under the age of 500 even know who they are?” 

“Well, I suppose they couldn’t,” he answered. 

“Right, and unless my sources are very wrong, the coven in town isn’t even 1000 combined. The oldest member hasn’t seen 500 years!” I paced back and forth in front of the TV. “They don’t know anything about who they are! It’s like a 15 year old teaching a 10 year old how the world works! It’s preposterous!” 

Dad looked up from the screen at me, “Bella, they’re doing fine on their own. They don’t need you to step in.” 

“I know,” I said, almost whining, “but they don’t know anything! I’ve been waving a giant flag in front of their faces, but they rely too much on their senses to tell when a vampire is in front of them. It’s almost not even fun anymore! It’s like teasing a baby, they know just enough to be confused, but not enough to actually see through my ruse.” I huffed and fell into a chair. 

Dad smiled, “you want to take them under your wing.”

“No!” I scoffed, “I don’t want to be their mother, I don’t want to be their teacher, but it’s not fun to tease someone when they don’t even realize they’re being teased! We could make all the humans so confused, but nooo, they can’t see past the end of their own noses!” I crossed my arms over my chest, frowning. 

“You’re bored, and want a new friend to play with, and your usual method of making friends isn’t working.” he said, looking at me knowingly. 

“Ugh! Fine!” I shouted, “it would be so much fun to have new friends, but if I can’t get them to recognize who I am, why should I want to be friends with them!” 

“Because you haven’t played with anyone in 100 years?” he said leadingly. 

“That’s not true!” I retorted. “I had lots of fun in the 1960s playing with Anthony.”

“He doesn’t count and you know it,” dad said, “besides, he wasn’t a new friend, you’ve been friends with him forever.”

I pouted at him, “it hasn’t been forever, and besides I hadn’t seen him in so long, it was almost like we were meeting again for the first time.” 

“So, by your own admission, you haven’t made friends with anyone new in at least 100 years,” he said gently. “I think you want to be friends with them.” 

He smiled, and held out his hand to me. I took it and let him pull me onto his lap. “I know I’m not your father, but we’ve been playing at it for so long, surely I’ve picked up a few things by this point?” He said, rocking me. 

I pouted again. “I’ve got two sides of me, one side wanting to play with them, and one side wanting to teach them how to be better. But I can’t do both.” 

He smiled again, “you can, you just have to figure it out.”


	7. Chapter 7

Summer break was the best and worst. Summer meant I didn’t have to pretend to be a dumb little human, but at the same time, generally speaking the summer was sunnier, and that made it a little more annoying to be out and about. 

I passed it in a haze of boredom. By the time July rolled around I was climbing trees, trying to get to the topmost branch before it broke beneath me. The game was more about planning and anticipating than about raw power. 

One day I decided to mix it up and try to jump from tree to tree. It didn’t take long and I found a clearing with a lovely Victorian style house in it. The scents surrounding the house were nearly all vampire. It looked like I had found the coven’s home. Naturally, if I’d wanted to find it months ago, I could have, but stumbling across it on accident was much more fun. 

I sat at the top of the tree for several hours, observing. It appeared that there wasn’t anyone home. The scents were stale, and in fact, the grass had grown up much higher than most Americans prefer. I figured they were away, maybe visiting friends? 

Either way, the house was empty, and it was not likely anyone would be home soon. I smiled and walked into the house. They were so confident no one would dare enter their house they hadn’t even locked the door. Perfect. 

I looked around, it appeared to be a normal home, nothing to even indicate there were supernatural beings living here. I spent a few minutes going into each room and getting a feel for what these vampires did. It was obvious that the bedrooms were just for show. Maybe to allow the mated couples to have privacy, but nevertheless, no one slept on these beds. As I wandered from room to room I came across a study with a fascinating painting in it. It was a painting of 4 men, each pale and 3 of them had blood red eyes. The Volturi, with another man. 

I examined the painting closer. They were decorated in the style of the 17th century, the 3 kings had pieces from centuries prior, like they weren’t keeping up with the times, but the fourth man was very much dressed in late 17th century clothes. He stood just far enough away from the Volturi that it was obvious they were not together, but yet here was a painting of them. I looked around the study a little more and found a picture of the desk. The same man in the painting was in it, next to the un-mated boy and the giant with his blond mate. E-something. How interesting, this coven of vegetarians’ leader was with the Volturi for a time period. Which meant he likely knew of me. 

Vampires, while immortal, tended to have a pretty steep bell curve of living. Most newborn vampires didn’t live much past their first decade. They would get too much attention and the Volturi would swoop in to dispose of them. Most vampires who reached their 100th birthday would live a further 500 years, but then either boredom, or territory squabbles would kill them. By the time their 1000th birthday came around, only those with perfect control, a small coven, or a very large coven were still alive. Naturally the fact that every year more vampires were being made skewed the data to younger vampires. At any given time only about .0001% of people on earth were vampires. This meant that 2000 years ago there were only 20,000 vampires. Today there are 100,000, so at least 80,000 vampires are less than 2000 years old. As far as I know, there’s only 5 vampires older than 5000 years old. Me, my ‘parents’, and two of my children. Technically all 4 are my children, but my parents are older than me, at least when they were humans. 

I don’t advertise how old I am, but for the older generation of vampires, they all know. The Volturi know, it’s only their respect for who I am, and the fact I have no interest in ruling that they leave me alone. But they know who I am, and anyone who’s spent time with them would likely be told of me. I spent 100 years with them, during the plague, it was easier to find clean humans when many people were searching. I never sat for a portrait, but that doesn’t mean one wasn’t made of me. 

So, what appears to be the leader of the coven likely knew who I was. And it appears that he is the sire of 4 of the others. It’s faint, but the scent of the venom that is used to change a vampire lingers, slowly diluting with the venom produced by the child, it takes a thousand years for the last of it to be used up, leaving a clear family tree to any who care to look. The scent of the leader was pure and untainted by the scent of the others. While 4 of the others had his scent mingled through them. 

I smiled. Creating vampires, while not even unofficially disallowed, was something generally looked down upon by the Volturi. For two reasons, one was that larger covens would more easily overthrow them, and more vampires means more chances for the humans to notice. This wasn’t a threat that I could use as blackmail, but it was one that would come in handy to know, especially as the youngest generation tend to be just a little weaker. If I were to turn a human, they would be stronger and more powerful than these vampires. 

I poked around a little more, the two mates who had spoken to me were not created by the leader, and it appeared they were of a generation of the leader. When the sire can live for thousands of years, generations are very hard to track. 

I left a note, both on the back of the painting, as well as on the kitchen counter. The one on the painting said, “Elisheba brings you greetings.” the one on the counter said, “Bella was here. Come and find me.” 

As I left the house I took a deep breath, the perfume and scent blockers worked, I could just smell the edge of something lingering under their scents. They wouldn’t be able to smell a thing.


	8. Chapter 8

When school started again in the fall, I went begrudgingly. My trip to the coven’s house had been 2 months ago, and nothing had happened! No one knocked on our door, I didn’t get suspicious looks at the grocery store, nothing. I thought my boredom was over, but no. 

At least this year I was in the same classes as the coven. Suspicious, but not surprising, considering the size of the school. My first class was English. Scar boy was in it. 

“Hi Bella,” he said, sitting next to me. 

“Hi, Scar boy,” I said, smiling a wide grin. “How was your summer?”

“Good, we went to visit our cousins in Alaska, it was fun.” 

“Alaska, sounds cool,” I replied, already bored. “I had fun exploring the woods around here.” 

“Oh really, find anything interesting?” he said, looking almost nervous. 

“Not really, I found an old house, but it didn’t look like anyone lived there,” I said, trying not to grin. “Oh! I found a really cool tree.” 

“Okay?” he said, obviously trying not to give away that he lived in an old house in the woods.

“I’ll have to show it to you sometime!” I smiled my biggest, most insane grin. 

“The tree....” he said slowly. 

“-yep!” I chirped, not as good as his mate’s, but still. “It’s a really cool tree!” 

“I’m sure,” he said, obviously not wanting to be in this conversation, but not quite sure how to get out. 

“I even invented a cool new game! Try to climb as high into the tree as you can without a branch breaking!” I smiled even wider. “Not to brag, but I bet I would win!” 

He rolled his eyes and tried not to show how sure of himself he was. “Some time we can sure try it out.” 

The teacher called the class to order, and we settled in to learn about Shakespeare. An interesting guy, I had gone to a few of his plays. Hamlet was very funny, and somehow got popular overnight. It’s so funny how insistant High School English teachers are about not laughing at the dick jokes. The class went fairly quickly, at least for a high school english class. 

Pretty soon I was in Chemistry, with who else other than the little vampire girl! She was vibrating so hard, nearly enough to become invisible to the humans. 

“Hi Bella!” she said, the minute I came into view. 

“Oh, great, the hyper one. This will mix with chemicals well,” I said, faster than humans could hear, and arguably, even be able to know I was talking. 

“What did you say?” she said, trying to act like a confused human, yet still knowing I was speaking. Honestly, it almost seemed like she hadn’t caught what I said. 

“Hmm?” I asked, “oh, I just said ‘hi, hyper one.’”

“You called me Little Birdy last time,” she said, smiling. “What changed?”

“Oh, nothing, but you didn’t chirp like a bird, you just seemed like you were vibrating like you couldn’t sit still,” I said, trying to be vacant and uninterested in the proceedings. 

“I’m just so excited to be partnering with you!” She said, still literally vibrating in her seat. I was afraid that the seat would explode from the resonance. 

I rolled my eyes, “if you jeopardize the possibility of me getting an A, I will make sure you will never be able to look at a beaker without feeling pain again.” 

She tried very hard to look like my idle threat scared her, “I’m sure we’ll get an A.” 

I gave her a side glance and said nothing. 

The teacher got our attention and we were off to the races. I will admit it was fun having a vampire for a partner, because I could do things a human would baulk at, like picking up pieces of water reactive chemicals with my bare hands, no sweat baby, and dropping them into the beaker. Of course I had to hide from the teacher, but that was easy. 

By the end of the class I was fine with having her as my partner, but of course, I would never tell her that. 

Calculus, which I honestly never bothered to learn because humans invent new math every thousand years, was my next class. The tall blond one just happened to sit next to me. 

“‘Sup, hot stuff,” I said, nodding to her as she sat down. 

She just glared at me. 

I lifted my hands in a placating manner “I’m just saying hi.”

She continued to glare. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if this was her default setting, or if she was suspicious of how close I was getting with other members of her coven, of their own volition, I remind you! Or maybe I’d done something that made her mad. I didn’t really care. 

I turned to the front of the room and tried to listen to the teacher talk about how this math is the best math, and all I wanted to do was roll my eyes and say we thought that 1000 years ago about that math too!

Halfway through the class when the teacher had had us split into groups to work on the problems, I turned to the hot blond and raised my eyebrows, “Want to work together?”

She glared at me, naturally, but nodded the tiniest little nod. 

“Great,” I said, “I should understand this, goodness knows I’ve been around long enough to pick it up through osmosis, but yet I can never keep up with the math theories of the century,” I winked, “you seem like you’ve been around the block. Do you understand this stuff, hot stuff?”

“Of course,” she said, glaring, this time she was looking down her nose at me, like I was the idiot to not understand calculus! 

I gestured for her to start the worksheet, which she did, still glaring at me. I would be impressed at her ability to glare under any circumstance, but it was aimed at me, and I wasn’t a fan of it. 

We got through the class with me pushing her buttons a little, and her glaring at me. It was fun. 

The last class I had before lunch was US History. America loves teaching us how they’re always the good guys and the best in the world. And who would be in it other than Mr brooding himself. Honestly, he was the one I didn’t like. The rest of the coven was okay, but he just struck me as a whiner and someone who probably thought vampires were monsters. 

Of course the fact that I obviously would have been his singer if I were actually human didn’t escape my notice. My natural scent was suppressed and covered, but what got through was a singer after death, and only the edge of vampire kept him from attacking me. 

Naturally he sat next to me in class. 

I whispered under my breath, “jeez, should I be afraid you’re going to come after me with a knife?” I very purposefully made it soft, but human pacing. I hadn’t decided who would catch on first, but he was my best bet. 

He looked appropriately confused, and said, very obviously using the last of his breath, “I won’t hurt you.” 

I smiled at him like you would a crazy person you’re trying to placate, “Of course not, then you would have to move towns, and your family would be uprooted, and everyone would hate you.” 

“Bella,” he stared, “there’s something you should know-”

“Honey,” I said, interrupting him, “there isn’t anything I don’t know, and if you tell me, we’re all going to get into trouble.” I winked at him, just to put him off the trail. 

He stared at me and then very deliberately looked at the teacher. 

I smiled, this year was going to be fun. 

After lunch, which I avoided altogether, was PE. Yay, a full hour of downplaying my strength! 

The big one was in this class. I was impressed, 5 classes with the 5 Cullens. Not too shabby. Of course in a school this size that wasn’t too surprising, I probably had the same classes as someone else too. But I didn’t care about the humans. I cared about the vampires, and how best to get them to realize we should be friends. Or maybe not friends, but at least they would be able to look farther than their noses! 

We got suited up and were split into teams to play dodgeball, a fun sport. Much more fun than stoning people that was popular 2000 years ago. 

Naturally the hulk tried to keep his strength to himself. Maybe I should learn their names? Nah, it’s more fun this way. Either way, vampire boy did not want to hurt a human by throwing a rubber ball too hard at them. 

So I threw a ball at him. It wasn’t hard, not by our standards, but it would have knocked a human on their butt very hard. Bruises for days. Mr. Strong and buff didn’t flinch. 

“You’ll have to do better than that, or someone will notice,” I called across the room. Just below human understanding. 

“What-?” he said, looking around for who said that. 

I threw another ball at him, harder this time, “if you don’t flinch when a ball hits you, someone will notice and start asking questions.” 

He looked around some more, then finally noticed me. “You?” he mouthed. 

I smiled and winked. Then shifted so a ball hit me. I staggered back a little and pouted. “Me?” I mouthed back. 

The rest of the day was boring by comparison. I didn’t have any other classes with the coven, and they were all boring.


	9. Chapter 9

That night I went to the tree I found their house near and settled in near the top. To listen to see if they were talking about me. I tuned my body to the wind, letting the vibrations of the tree become a part of me, both making me less easily spotted, and making it easier to tune out the sounds of nature. 

I could hear voices coming from inside the house.

“Are you sure we can’t just make her disappear?” came a snooty sounding voice, hot blond obviously. 

“Now, Rosalie, you know that would cause more problems, besides her father is the Chief of Police. There would be a huge investigation if she vanished.” said a cultured voice, male, likely the coven leader. 

“She obviously knows more about us than she lets on,” said Mr Brooding, “she implied she knew about us.”

“Did she actually say that, Edward, or did she think you were talking about something else?” the coven leader said. 

“She didn’t actually say she knew we were vampires, but she implied she knew everything about us, and we would get in trouble for telling her.” brooding said. 

“Did you get anything from her mind?” the leader said. Interesting, it sounds like Mr. brooding is a mind reader. 

“It was weird, Carlisle, I could only hear exactly what she was saying, or seeing. I didn’t hear any inner commentary. I’ve never come across someone like that.” 

“Speaking of,” what sounded like scar boy interjected. “Her emotions are muted. Like she doesn’t feel anything strongly. Or like she doesn’t feel anything except what’s expressed on her face.” 

“Interesting, Jasper.” Carlisle said, “Alice, what about you? Have you seen her?”

“That’s what’s interesting, I can’t see her, but I can see scenes she’s in,” the hyper one said. “It’s nothing like the wolves, where the scene goes blank when they are involved.” 

Wolves, how very interesting, there might be even more supernatural people here! And it sounds like this coven had at least 3 people with abilities. How unusual. 

Of course, every vampire had an ability, it was part of what made us vampires. However, especially with the younger generations the ability was diluted. One of my grandchildren might have the ability to control the weather, but one of their great-grandchildren could only change the temperature by a few degrees.

Once you get far enough down the family tree abilities start to turn into simple seaming things. Slightly more empathy, or strength, or critical thinking than other vampires. Nothing really noticeable or even what most modern vampires would call an ability, but without it, it would be impossible to be a true vampire. 

So 3 abilities wasn’t really true, there were 3 vampires with active abilities, not passive. Either way, something that would be fun to play with. 

“So neither you, Alice, or Jasper, or Edward can get anything extra from this girl?” an unfamiliar woman’s voice asked. I presumed it was the coven leader’s mate. 

“That’s right, Esme,” Edward answered. 

“Who cares how weird she is,” Rosalie interrupted, “She might know something about us, and that would mean we would have to move towns. Again.”

“Babe, she doesn’t know anything about us,” the strong man said. 

“How do you know, Emmett?” she asked. “Didn’t you have class with her? Did she act odd?”

“Yeah, I had PE with her. She threw a ball at me, but I didn’t feel it. And she got hit with a ball, not on purpose.” I wanted to laugh so hard. I thought he had picked up on me, but he thought I was a lucky human to hit him, and thought a vampire would never get hit on purpose. This one vampire might just convince 6 others I was just a weird human. I loved it. 

“Emmett,” Edward said, “think of your PE class and your interactions with her.” There was a pause while that happened, I presumed. “Emmett,” Edward said in a horrified voice, “that second ball hit you hard enough it nearly exploded. A human couldn’t have done that.” 

“What?! No way, she just got lucky!” Emmett refuted. “Besides, if she knows about us, why isn’t she just coming out and saying it?”

“Maybe she knows what will happen if it comes out a human knows about vampires,” Alice said. 

“Is she even human?” asked Esme. How very interesting. I thought it would take much longer for someone to pick up on that. 

“Of course she’s human,” Edward said, I could tell from his tone that he couldn’t comprehend the idea I wasn’t human. 

“I’m not so sure, Edward,” Jasper said slowly. “She noticed my scars, she threw that ball as Emmett, and hit him, she keeps saying things that she shouldn’t know, and I know she’s spoken too fast for a human to speak.” 

“So what, the fact that a human is clever enough to say something vague, has good vision, and good aim, means that we’re going to call her a non-human?!” Edward ranted. “Besides, I know I’ve seen her in the sun, and she doesn’t sparkle!” he said triumphantly, “and! And, her eyes aren’t red or gold.” I could feel the ‘beat that’ smirk that must be on his face. 

“I might have an answer to that,” Carslile said slowly. 

“What do you mean, Carlisle?” Alice said. 

He sighed. I sat up a little, curious if my note had been discovered, or if he had just remembered me. “When I was with the Volturi, I became curious about the origin of vampires. So I asked around, and was pointed towards Elisheba. She’s known as the mother of vampires, and even the Volturi don’t know how old she truly is. She stayed with them during the 14th century for a time. They have a portrait of her, she truly is beautiful. The Volturi won’t attack her out of respect for her age and status, and perhaps more importantly she has never expressed interest in ruling. They described her as child-like, and not even they know exactly what her powers are.

“That being said, the picture they showed me showed a woman with brown eyes, neither golden like mine, nor red like the Volturi. Her skin, while pale, almost seemed to not be as hard as a painting of the Voltrui made it seem, is shown luminously, like she was standing in the sun. 

“They weren’t clear on what she did, and I doubt that she’s even alive today, but it was strongly encouraged that if I were to ever come across her, it would be in my best interest to not bother her.” 

Edward gasped. “Think of her picture again, Carlisle!” There was a pause, and Edward swore. “That’s her!” 

“What-” 

“Who-” a cacophony of noise exploded.  
“Hold on a minute!” Alice shouted. “Edward or Carlisle, draw her picture, and we can decide from there.” A pause, “Carlisle, you should do it.” 

There was a longer pause with the scratching of a pencil on paper. I was very excited, I was so close to having someone new to play with! 

The paper was passed around the room and I heard an involuntary breath being. 

“Bella Swan, the weird girl who goes to our school is Elisheba, one of the oldest vampires alive.” Jasper said, almost reverent. 

“A painting done 700 years ago doesn’t mean that it’s her. It could be someone who looks like that!” scoffed Rosalie. 

“Rosalie, do you really believe that someone who is the spitting image of this painting, and someone who is suspiciously well informed, and suspiciously seems like a vampire, is just some random girl who got lucky?” Alice said.

“So what do we do?” Emmett asked, “Can I jump on her to see what happens!?” 

“She would act like a human, there’s no reason for her to break character now,” Alice said, “besides, we don’t know why she’s pretending to be human anyway.”

“Carlisle, does she eat humans?” Edward asked. 

“I’m not sure, she probably does, but her eyes don’t reflect a pure human diet.” he responded. 

“Does this mean the wolves will be trouble,” Edward said, sounding horrified. 

“They probably will make trouble,” Carlisle said, sounding resigned, “I imagine as long as she doesn’t hunt in Forks, doesn’t cross the treaty line, and doesn’t turn a human, they might not even notice her. But if they do, she shouldn’t be too bothered.” 

There was a part of me that desperately wanted to run straight into the lion's den, as it were, just to see what happened. The part of me that was ‘mother of vampires’ - a silly name that meant nothing except I was in the wrong place at the right time- didn’t want to chance getting hurt just to satisfy my curiosity. 

As I contemplated casually running into the wolves the coven was winding down from their conversation and going their separate ways. 

I was curious about the coven leader, Carlise, they called him. He knew the most about the vampiric world, he’d obviously traveled and made a name for himself before turning anyone. He knew of me, and my suspicion was correct, someone had painted a portrait of me after I left. 400 years ago I might have gone to them and demanded it destroyed, but today I was too excited to finally have the chance to play that I couldn’t care less. 

As I thought Carlise went into his study, his mate followed him into the room. 

“Edward may be the mind reader, but I’m your mate, something is bothering you,” she said. 

He sighed, “The thought of Elisheba being here, in this town, interacting with my children frightens me more than the thought of the Volturi knocking on our door. When I described her as child-like I wasn’t exaggerating, according the Volturi she thrives on chaos, if a setting is too sedate she would poke at it until it got exciting enough for her tastes. And as she’s mother of vampires she has power beyond anything anyone has seen, what could she want here?” 

I heard Esme rub his shoulders, honestly, if these vampires don’t stop playing at being human soon I would attack them. “Carlisle, I know I haven’t met her, and far be it from me to doubt Edward or you, but she lives with Charlie Swan, you know the chief of police. I doubt he would turn a blind eye to her diet.” 

“That’s true,” Carlisle said pensively. I almost started giggling, Charlie was such a perfect actor no one in the town had even the inkling that he wasn’t what he appeared to be. It helped that his gift was geared more towards blending in than showing off. Renne got the showy gift. 

I heard them shifting around in the room. Unless I was mistaken, they were facing the painting. Carlisle signed again. “When I stayed with them I never thought I would ever meet the mother of vampires. Who knows, it may just be a girl who looks eerily like her.” 

I heard more shuffling, but the conversation moved on. It was boring now, and I decided to go home.


	10. Chapter 10

The next few weeks were very interesting. The Cullens attending school didn’t seem to know how to act around me. They either stared at me like I held the secrets to the universe, which I did a little bit, or like I was a creature they wanted to study. 

It was a lot of fun acting perfectly normal, and not reacting at all to their clumsy attempts to catch me in the act. I’d been playing this game for longer than any of them had been alive. I would win. 

Finally one of them, the tall blonde, approached me after classes one day. I was walking at a very conservative human speed and she totally cheated and walked just faster than humans should be able to. 

“Bella, can we talk,” she said, blocking my way. 

“Sure,” I said, “what do you want to talk about?” 

“Not here,” she said, glaring at a human walking by.

“Well, I can’t invite you to my house without my Dad’s permission, and he wouldn’t want me going to a strange house in the woods alone, that’s a perfect recipe for a horror movie.” I said with a straight face. 

She raised one eyebrow. “I was thinking more we could go to a coffee shop or the library.”

“Oh,” I smiled, just a little wider than would be expected. “That sounds great, I would love a coffee.” 

We got to the coffee shop and I ordered a black coffee. The tannins reminded me a little bit of blood, and made it easier to sip. 

“So, what did you want to say, hot stuff?”

She huffed, “I don’t care who you are, or what you’ve done. I just want you to leave my family alone.” 

“Me?” I said with my most innocent face. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” 

She glared, a common look on her face. “You know what I mean. I don’t care if you admit it, but I will not allow you to expose us or tourture us.”

I was shocked. That was how she saw me, as a torturer? The first real expression of the conversation crossed my face. I was hurt. “I’m just playing with you, I don’t want to tourture you!” 

“Could have fooled me,” she sniffed. 

I took a deep breath, not that I needed it, “I promise, I don’t want to expose you or your family. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to make new friends, and apparently I’m not as good at it as I used to be.” 

Her expression gentled, under pain of death I wouldn’t call it a smile, but it was a positive expression. “It’s possible I’m being over protective and reading too much into this. Let’s start over a little.” She held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Rosalie, I’m very protective of my family.”

I smiled, “Hi Rosalie, I’m Bella, it’s been a while since I’ve done this.” We shook hands. By her expression I shocked her with my skin, it was warmer than hers. The older a vampire gets, the warmer their skin is, no one is sure why, popular theories include being able to use the blood more efficiently, using the sun to warm the skin. I knew that was balony, my skin has always been significantly warmer than any of my children or their children. I suspected it was due to the purity of venom, Charlie was cooler than me, but warmer than any of his children. If you could perfectly trace a lineage, the youngest vampire would be coldest.  
I smirked. “Now that we’ve been introduced, want to freak out your family?” 

She smirked back, “now that I know your intentions, absolutely.”

We drove to their house, back in the woods. As we broke the tree line I could smell everyone was home. I tittered a little, and said, just louder than appropriate for a car, but too soft for a human to hear from the house. “Wow, this is where you live, how cool. I remember this house from when I was a kid, we used to think it was haunted, because no one lived there and yet it wasn’t for sale!” 

Rosalie grinned back at me. She said in a very normal speaking voice, “It is haunted. The original owners bought the land in the late 1800s and they’re still seen around here today.”

We parked and got out of the car. I winked at her, “So, babe, what will your family think of me?”

“Well, most of them know you already, hon,” she said with a shit eating grin. 

“I know, love, but I’ve not met them like this!” I replied, smirking. 

“Okay, sugar,” she said, trying not to laugh, “but everyone will really like you, just like I do.” 

“Alright, pumpkin,” I said, walking up the path. “I guess it’s time to face the dragons.”

“Oh, dumpling, they’re not dragons, they’re vampires.” she said.  
I’d been hearing motion, and cut off soft communication from inside, but as Rosalie said that, there was a flurry of activity and scruffy boy came charging out of the house. Ready to tell off Rosalie, and simultaneously imply that we’re all monsters. 

As soon as he saw me and realized who I was he stopped short, rather like a puppy tripping over their paws. “-what?” he said softly. 

The rest of the family, having heard the commotion followed him outside. 

The coven leader looked at me, then Rosalie, then back to me, then to ruffled boy, then back to me. 

“Greetings, I am Carlisle, the leader of this coven,” he said, bowing slightly. 

I smiled gently, “Carlisle, I greet you and hope for your health in the future. Damiq ud.”

He gestured to the vampires clustered around him, “this is my coven. My mate Esme, our children, Edward, Emmett, Alice, and Jasper, and you know Rosalie. We welcome you to our home.” 

I smiled and clapped. “I’m so excited to meet you, and I know we will be very good friends!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! 
> 
> The End
> 
> (Should the inspiration strike I'll probably turn this into a series. I imagine that Bella and the Cullens play little games to try to make the humans suspicious but it was either finish here, or never finish.
> 
> Well the world is ending, at least bella met the cullens....


End file.
